ic lighting even small touches such as washing up in the sink or a ketchup bottle on the dinner table contribute to this sense of naturalism.Another part of naturalism is in the characters themselves. In order to appear “normal” they must speak with the appropriate dialect and behave in a very normal manner. For example, they couldn’t begin dancing and singing in the street without the audience questioning the realism of the show.Other generic characteristics include the open texts; this is where the audience are able to read into the programme in different ways, when one reading is not dominant. The serial form is a characteristic of soap opera. This means that soaps are ongoing and resist narrative closure. In practise this means that even though a particular plot may have been wrapped up, it is still on going in the sense that it can be referred to weeks later. There are multiple narrative strands. This is different storylines, usually up to 5 or 6, acting simultaneously. Linked to this, these multiple strands are usually distinct from each other. All soap operas have many characters, none being the main character as in films. Time parallels real time in soaps, the audience are made to feel that the action continues with or without the audience. Fiske discusses this,” This means that the time taken to perform an action on television coincides precisely with the time taken to perform it in “real life” – dead time in the middle cannot be edited out as it is on film. This….adds subtly to the sense of realisticness, the sense that the camera is merely recording what happened.” (John Fiske Television Culture, Routledge 1997, p.22-23) Another generic characteristic is that characters change or have reversals in fortune this is to keep the audience interested in their lives. If a character seems to just have a constant run of bad luck, the audience will get bored eventually, and so the...
